The EU financial sector is developing intensively, and Poland plays a vital role in it.
Warsaw, November 26, 2025 – Against the backdrop of the diverse landscape of European financial centres, individual countries are building their positions based on distinct advantages. According to the “EU Financial Centres Power Index” report, prepared by the advisory firm Deloitte in cooperation with Future Finance Poland, Poland leads Central Europe in 6 out of 13 index indicators. It ranks 4th in the EU in terms of employment in the financial sector, 6th in terms of value added to GDP, and 7th in the number of so-called “unicorns”. Compared to other analyzed countries, Poland also stands out for the high activity of its financial sector, innovation, and growing internationalization. However, it performs weaker in the area of corporate financing.
Poland holds a strong position among the largest financial markets of the European Union, confirmed by both sectoral data and comparative results across member states. In the analysis of thirteen indicators, the country leads the CEE region in six categories. High rankings concern, among other things, the scale of employment: last year, 466,000 people already worked in financial and insurance institutions, placing Poland in fourth place in the EU – just behind Germany, France, and Italy. The sector’s significance is also highlighted by the amount of value added generated by financial institutions, where Poland ranks sixth among the analyzed countries.
“The European financial market shows that the size of an economy does not always translate directly into the strength of the sector. This is visible, for example, in the cases of Luxembourg or Lithuania, which, despite significantly smaller sizes, are able to build advantages through specialization in selected financial services. Poland operates in a different model: the scale of the economy is the main factor building the sector’s importance, and its structure reflects the profile of a large, universal market. In the Central European region, it is Poland that plays the role of leader, outpacing Austria and the Czech Republic in terms of development capabilities and business potential. However, the example of smaller but more specialized countries shows where large economies can look for advantages and how to use scale to build a stronger position in the European financial architecture.”
— Julia Patorska, Partner, Sustainability & Climate Portfolio Leader in Poland and Central Europe at Deloitte.
Poland as a Leader in Digital Finance
Digital technologies are becoming one of the main competitive advantages in European financial centres, which is clearly visible in the Polish market, distinguished by the rapid implementation of modern mobile solutions. According to the ranking, the area of innovation is one of Poland’s greatest assets – in this sub-index, it placed behind Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Italy.
The country ranks first in the European Union in terms of the number of mobile and online transactions, and the BLIK system alone handled 2.4 billion such operations in 2024. Additionally, Poland is in the top ten EU countries (seventh place) in terms of the number of so-called “unicorns,” i.e., startups valued at at least $1 billion.
Openness of the Economy and Development of Financial Services
The Polish financial market operates within one of the most open economies in the European Union, where trade value reaches almost 100% of GDP (according to World Bank data). In such an environment, knowledge-based services, covering both professional and IT activities, grew particularly fast in the last decade, creating favorable conditions for the development of financial services as well.
The value of this segment increased by 244% during this time, which is the fifth-highest result in the EU in terms of growth rate. At the same time, Poland remains the country with the highest employment in foreign financial and insurance institutions, which collectively employ 130,000 people, strengthening the role of this market as a key operational hub for entities operating across the entire Community.
“The growing international activity of the Polish financial sector results from a combination of several strong advantages. On the one hand, Poland is a large internal market capable of absorbing new services and technologies; on the other hand, it serves as an operational hub for institutions operating throughout the Union. This combination increases the importance of the local sector and also shifts it towards the role characteristic of mature financial centres: places that can simultaneously serve domestic clients and support the operations of international entities.”
— Dorota Cudna-Sławińska, Partner, Strategy Portfolio Leader in Poland and Central Europe.
Limited Scale of Financing
Although the Polish financial sector remains one of the largest in the Union, its capabilities to support enterprises are smaller compared to comparable Western European economies. The most significant source of this difference is the loans-to-GDP ratio, which has been systematically decreasing since 2015. The scale of the corporate debt market also remains limited, with Poland ranking fifteenth in the EU in this respect. Similarly, the structure of gross written premiums indicates that the insurance sector is smaller than in countries with a similar market size.
The capitalization of listed companies gives Poland the tenth position in the Union, but their number has been decreasing in recent years, weakening the potential of this part of the market as a stable source of investment financing for enterprises.
Observations and Recommendations
Poland is a large and innovative economy with growing importance in the European financial system; however, the index results point to clear barriers in the area of business financing. In the “Economy Financing” sub-index, it ranks thirteenth, showing that the potential resulting from the market scale is not fully reflected in the development of the debt securities market, equities, or the insurance industry.
For the sector to develop further and gain advantages in other categories, it will be necessary to:
- Ensure stable operating conditions for financial institutions.
- Introduce more balanced taxation rules for different forms of investment (without preferential conditions for the real estate market).
- Tidy up the pension system.
- Create regulations favoring the development of financial innovation.
- Build a stronger position for Poland as a regional financial centre.
“The European financial system is currently in a phase of reconstruction and needs tools that allow us to capture the changes taking place in an objective way that enables comparison. Traditional rankings often describe the past more than the present, and the image of financial centres can be based on reputation rather than real effectiveness. The EU Financial Centres Power Index introduces a different perspective, based solely on measurable parameters that show both the scale of markets and their ability to finance the economy, create innovation, and function in the European circulation of cross-border services. I believe that such an approach allows us to better understand where individual financial centres are really gaining or losing position and constitutes a valuable source of knowledge for decision-makers, investors, and financial institutions across the Union.”
— Dr Paweł Widawski, President of the Board, Future Finance Poland.
